


The Shadow of Her Neighbour

by Kroki



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Ghosts, Romance, Supernatural Elements, Vampires, no beta we die like man, somewhere deep in there but it is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26650933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kroki/pseuds/Kroki
Summary: She's watching the shadow of her neighbour, still against the moonlight. He stays there for hours. Just by himself, in the dead silence of the night.Dead silence,yeah.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 1





	1. Through Her Eyes

The shadow of her neighbour goes very still on the nights when the moon is bright. It falls into her room, his silhouette bearly visible through the curtains.

It falls on the open door, on the windowsill, onto the floor under the curtains. Sometimes it touches the sofa.

She enjoys watching it from her room, counting wooden rows of the floor it covers.

It is always darker than anything around there. Darker than any other shadow.

When the shadow moves, she feels like all her essence stills, waiting for... For something, anything really.

She greedily waits for the form to change, for him to turn somehow.

But if he goes back to the room, she stops looking.

He has his privacy. He should have it, at least.

The shadow of her neighbour is an interesting thing. On some days it seems like he is wearing some coat. Then, he opens it and it flies on the wind as two big dark wings.

Or maybe those  _ are  _ his wings.

He has them too.

And  _ their  _ shadow would probably look like this.

Sometimes she wants to go over there, touch that back and bite one of the wings.

If she had to compare, she would say they are some giant bat wings, so it's not like she'll get a mouthful of feathers.

Not like she can get a mouth full of _anything_ these days.

But he said...

A very long time ago he said that bites to his wings don't hurt per se, but he feels them for weeks after.

And she would like that.

She would like him to feel.

She would like to feel the bite too, but... Well, cannot do what she cannot.

For all the closeness they have, for all the watching she does, she never hears his voice.

It never reaches her and lately... How long has it been? She isn't sure she remembers how his laugh sounds. Or how he chuckles. She isn't sure in a lot of things. Not anymore.

It seems that she just can't see the time on the clocks, blurry round thing instead of numbers and arrows. Same goes for the dates on the supposedly new calendar. 

Though she can’t be sure it really was changed. Ever.

Someone came over to him, some friends.

She caught a glimpse of them by mistake, if only because she didn't hear their approach to turn away. 

But also she wasn't able to  _ see _ , to really _see_ their faces.

And with the neighbour? She can’t even look.

She's too afraid to find out.

She's watching the shadow of her neighbour, still against the moonlight. He stays there for hours. Just by himself, in the dead silence of the night.

_Dead silence_ , _yeah,_ he laughed wryly. It came out more like a small vibration of the wind.

She was too preoccupied with the way he gathered his wings. Or maybe, she was too deep in the thoughts and she didn't hear as he stepped into her room.

Now, without the curtains between them, their eyes met for the first time in a long, long while. 

He was standing in her room now, the only room that led to his balcony. In his mansion.

But not that he knew that their eyes met. Or well, that she saw his eyes.

And hey, hey, she would thank someone if there was anyone to thank. Because she _saw them_. She saw his face, she was able to see it and not some blur like the faces of his weird friends or all the clocks and the goddamn calendar.

She was able to see all those hard lines and dazzling bright golden eyes.

She finally saw him again.

She wanted to say something, reached out to touch him.

But all he felt was a light blow of wind, if even.

Well.

It's not like she didn't know.

She cannot make him see her, or hear her, or notice her.

She cannot talk to him, or touch him, or help him.

There is so much she cannot do lately.

And she just wants the wooden floor to creak when she goes out to join him on the balcony. 

For his shadow to cover her when he turns his blazing eyes to meet her.

For him to laugh and ask her to join him there. 

Talk, and laugh and drink with shadows intertwined.

But standing there in her room with him looking right at her, right through her, with that beautiful stoic mask of his...

What a pity that she's just a ghost these days.

Though, to be fair…

_Pity_ doesn't begin to cover it.


	2. Through His Senses

He missed her.

Humans tend to say that time heals stuff like this. But that's probably only because everything is different about human years.

Their lives are so short, they try to live it as fast as they can.

In his case, he is never in a hurry.

And nothing ever passes for him, not really.

He misses her.

Every moment he is awake he feels that something is terribly wrong in his mansion. He feels that she is not there but he also feels that she is.

It drives him crazy with longing.

And hurt, he is so hurt.

When did she become something so important to him, that knowing she is not there anymore,  _ thinking about it _ , feels worse than anything he ever felt?

Including those times he tried to live alongside humans and got burned or hurt or killed by those he loved because he was  _ a monster _ , whatever that means.

He still feels her in the house, so he goes to the balcony any way that is not through her room. 

(He cannot enter it, doesn't want to think about it)

He stays there, looks at the moon, breathes cold night air and  _ feels _ .

If he closes his eyes and concentrates, he can separate her presence from all the other living thing (from all the really  _ living  _ things, his inner voice supplies and he hates it with passion for a moment).

She is  _ there _ .

His instincts tell him that she is, so he stays there and waits for her to come out of the room with a light joke on the tip of her tongue and some drinks she probably hides in her room so that she doesn't need to run into the kitchen when she feels like drinking.

He stands there thinking to himself  _ pleasepleaseplease _ in circles and sometimes...

“Please, come back…” he would whisper. 

And the stillness of the night, the dead silence that answers him is terrifying.

He feels pitiful, really.

Some days he just flies out from the balcony into the forest to startle some animals.

Just to break the silence.

On bad days he would go hunting some predators, chasing and catching and scaring them into submission just to let go after.

The animals learn.

They become stronger and faster and more vicious.

They scare humans more and more, the stories about the forest become scarier with each surviving visitor. He is perfectly content with it.

But he misses her nonetheless.

Sometimes he would go back to the room,  _ her room _ , and lie down in her sofa.

He would bury his face in his hands, curling there into himself and go to sleep, thinking about her kind eyes or the way she was combing his hair with her fingers.

The evenings after, when he wakes, are the worst because he  _ forgets _ .

He wakes up on the sofa, feeling her right next to it. He smiles and opens his eyes ready to joke about how sometimes he wants to sleep here,  _ what, it's her room but it's his mansion, he can sleep any-. _

And then he sees the empty room. She is not there.

And of course, she isn't, he bit her and she is dead and  _ how could he ever forget _ , how does anyone forget that?

On those days he puts on a hard mask on his face, goes to his bedroom and lies there watching the ceiling until he feels sleepy.

_ It's his fault. _

She said it was okay.

_ He did it. _

She asked him to.

_ He shouldn't have listened to her. _

Except that he should've, he trusted her. It is the right thing to do, even now he thinks so.

He trusted her to know what she needed and he trusted her with his heart.

And this is where it brings him.

(But look at where it brought her.)

He tries to be strong, he never cries after that first night where her body in his hands just slowly disappeared into nothing.

He was alone before and people died before. 

But usually, they didn't leave presence this strong he feels it for years.

He closes his eyes when he is in the room. He stills pretends she is there sometimes. It calms him, but not for too long.

His friends come over, they drink and fight and hunt.

One of the fangy ones tries to bite him because they did it once in a while for thrill and fun.

He punches him so strongly his friend he breaks the table with his back. Windows shutter dangerously with the impact.

He leans to the friend, kisses his forehead.

“Please, be careful with this kind of stuff,” he asks softly into his hair.

Vampire laughs like there is no tomorrow and winks. 

“You are so taken I'm almost jealous. How is your lady?”, he says, pointing to the right, to her room and that just...

“Dead,” he answers, voice tight and too honest.

The vampire turns to the wall confused, looks more attentively, then turns to the others and points to it with a grin.

“Ooooh”, one of the others says, delightedly. “This is so awkward, I love it!”

The third one punches his shoulder.

“It's okay”, the third one tells him, calm and collected, black eyes settling something inside him. The other two went still with attention. “You are going to be fine and it'll be just great. This kind of things takes time. Just don't forget to look.”

“Time,” he repeats, disgusted.

And then the first one throws a bottle at him.

“Drink, you idiot,” he says, apparently satisfied.

Only after they leave (all so glad and happy for him he wants to break something because  _ what _ , did they even listen to what he said?) he thinks back and wonders how all of them sensed her.

It takes him three more days.

Which is quite ironic considering the first time it took him three days too.

The moon is full and he flies to the balcony from the outside.

He stays there, feels her, thinks about her.

He doesn't know what he should do. He takes off his coat and lets his wings out, an alternative to pacing he learned ages ago.

But he remembers the demon’s advice,  _ don't forget to look _ . So he stays there until he calms himself and then he puts his wings back and put on his coat on the way in.

His gaze is set right in front of him for the first time in a while.

And he sees it, he does.

Blond hair and brown eyes, white skin, neck and shoulders.

And that's it.

That's it, but that is her face and part of her body and her expression is surprised like she didn't expect him to go in ( _ like she didn't expect to see him in his house _ ).

And it's ridiculous, but he freezes and doesn't let himself to react.

_ It may disappear _ , he thinks, _ it's probably my imagination. _

And then he catches how her gaze slides down, lower lip wobbling, right shoulder going back as if she took her hand back and no, just  _ no _ .

“Hey,” he says, with a raspy voice. She doesn't react.

He comes closer and she looks so sad with her gaze down like she thinks he is going to leave her in a moment. As if he is going to leave her all alone. As if  _ he  _ has been the one who left.

So he goes to his knees so that his face will be right under hers.

“Hey,” he repeats, softer.

She seems startled.

And then she opens her mouth and starts talking, expression desperate and guilty.

And he doesn't hear.

He doesn't hear but there and then he knows that this is real because she never had this expression around him.

So he gestures for her to stop, shows at his ears and turns his head.

“I can't hear you,” he enunciates slowly. “Can you? Hear me, that is.”

She seems confused and then she abruptly nods and laughs.

(He wants to hear it so much he almost cries.)

She seems to try to show him something, but...

“Wait. I can only see you partially. Your face,” he shows her as he describes. “Shoulders and right arm to the elbow”.

She considers that for a moment and then grins and blows him a kiss with the visible part of her arm.

He laughs, content and relieved.

(He still has no idea what the hell is going on)

He puts a hand to his chest, then points to her and puts his hands in a heart symbol.

(But understanding can wait)

_ Apparently, ghosts can blush. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He has three friends over.  
> Two vampires and a very polite demon.

**Author's Note:**

> Let's be clear, he is some weird vampire-like ancient creature.  
> And she is,.. currently a ghost.
> 
> __  
> Thank you for reading!  
> Please be kind


End file.
